Was it just a coincidence that as Donald Trump met last Monday with Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu to discuss a future attack against Iran that protests, some accompanied by violence, broke out in several cities in Iran? I am not a believer in coincidence. Following that meeting, the US news media — both print and electronic — was flooded with stories painting the protests as a mighty uprising of the Iranian people. A new revolution has begun… or so the Western public is being told.
One of the major purveyors of this narrative is the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which is an Iranian exile-based political opposition coalition founded in 1981 in Tehran (later relocated to Paris, France, with activities in Albania). It positions itself as a parliament-in-exile and the primary democratic alternative to the Islamic Republic regime. The NCRI advocates for overthrowing the current government and establishing a secular, democratic, pluralistic, and non-nuclear republic in Iran, emphasizing separation of religion and state, gender equality, human rights, and minority rights. And guess what? The NCRI is the creature of a group the US once labeled as a terrorist organization.
The NCRI as a tightly controlled front for the PMOI/MEK, with limited broad support inside Iran. The PMOI was formerly designated a terrorist organization by the US (delisted in 2012) and EU, partly due to past armed actions. The group has been accused of cult-like practices and authoritarian internal structure, though supporters reject these claims and emphasize its democratic platform.
The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) or Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), is an Iranian opposition group founded in 1965 with a long history of terrorism in Iran. It is the principal component of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which it describes as its political wing. The People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) has a documented history of violent activities, primarily from the 1970s to the early 2000s, which led to its designation as a terrorist organization by the United States (1997–2012), the European Union (until 2009), and others.
Hellbound and Down 